Aristotle or a post-modern anti-hero?

In On the Road Jack Kerouac produces what has change state known as the archetypal Beat hero, doyen Moriaty. An analysis of whether he is closer to a handed-down Aristotelian hero or to the postmodern anti-hero will reveal much about the often self-contradictory forces at work deep down the rhythms of fifties underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs . . . (Holmes, 1957). Before discussing which Moriaty is closer to it will be necessary to apprisely define both the handed-down and the postmodern hero, identifying what they hold in common and what divides them.The traditional Aristotelian hero is a high-born man, normally royal or at to the lowest degree from the aristocracy who appears to be on top of the world at the beginning of his story. He has many advantages, both natural and acquired. He is often successful, popular with others and unpatternedly happy. The tragic hero normally has something that has been called the fatal flaw (Kaufmann, 1992). This flaw whitethorn be something he has no blame for, such as the heel that makes Achilles physically vulnerable, the jealousy that makes Othello emotionally vulnerable or the introspection that makes Hamlet delay so long. This fatal flaw often leads, in angiotensin converting enzyme way or another, to the downfall of the tragic hero.So the traditional tragic hero falls from a high social position to disgrace and/or death through circumstance and through his vatic fatal flaw. Aristotle said that his destine should inspire pity and fear within the audience (Aristotle, 2001). Pity for the fate of the individual tragic hero and fear that they might fall into a similar situation themselves. By contrast, the anti-hero is, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, a main character in a dramatic or nar double-crosserive work who is characterized by a lack of traditional heroic qualities, such as high-mindedness of bravery (America, 1992).Some clue to which definition of booster dose hero or anti-hero doyen Moriaty falls can be found within the fact that the precise term anti-hero is in fact a Twentieth speed of light invention (Lawall, 1966). The idea of the anti-hero is in many ways linked to early twentieth century philosophies such as Existentialism, which suggested that life has little meaning and that no absolute standards of morality are relevant. The anti-hero creates his own grit of values, often from moment to moment, according to the needs of the moment. The postmodern anti-hero takes on similar propensities, although he is even much extreme. The Man-With-No-Name character that Clint Eas dickensod played in the 1960s spaghetti westerns is perhaps the classic postmodern anti-hero.The world of these westerns does not take a crap good and evil as could be identified by the white/ pitch-dark horses, the white/black cowboy hats and the handsome/ugly actors of the traditional western. There are merely shades of darkness in the spaghetti weste rn, and the same can be said for most of the characters in On the Road, set as it is within a world of constant wandering throughout America that is in some ways very similar to a western.One of the most important facets of On the Road is the fact that there are two main characters. First, there is Sal Paradise, the titular narrator of the impudent that has been more or less associated with Kerouac himself and second, there is doyen Moriaty. The reader is rapidly and constantly drawn into views of Dean Moriaty. Sal describes him as simply a youth hugely excited with life who possesses a mannikin of holy lightning . .. flashing from his excitement and his visions (Kerouac, 1957). Later Dean is draw as the holy con-man with the shining mind (Kerouac, 1957).So in the manner of both the hero and the anti-hero, Dean is a charismatic character who draws others to him through the sheer energy that he exudes and his apparent zest for everything life has to offer. provided Dean is very low born. He is apparently the son of an alcoholic who was never really brocaded properly and who has had immoral propensities from a very young age. Dean has been in prison for stealing cars. age traditional tragic heroes may commit the most serious of crimes (often murder) they are not normally twist in a conventional sense. There is something petty and hopeless about the kind of criminality that Dean Moriaty displays. only if in the best tradition of the postmodern anti-hero, Dean has learned a lot about how to suffer from his incarceration. He states, with characteristic bluntnessOnly a guy whos spent five historic period in jail can go to such maniacalhelpless extremes . . . prison is where you promise yourself the redress to live.(Kerouac, 1957)So the anti-hero discovers himself through falling from grace, even if he probably did not have far to fall in the first place. quite an than going to his death or languishing in the shame of his crimes he lives out the days of h is imprisonment and then comes out to go on the road. In one sense the novel shows what might happen when the tragic hero has fallen, been transformed and emerged as a postmodern anti-hero.Dean does fall advertise however, especially as the novel continues and the novelty of being free to do as he wishes starts to die thin. Thus his abandonment of his wife and child are brought to his attention, indeed he is confronted with it. Sal, ever the intelligent observer, states that where at a time Dean would have talked his way out, now he fell silent . . . he was BEAT (Kerouac, 1957).The takeoff booster of the novel goes through it performing decidedly un-heroic deeds such as this abandonment. He also expresses a constant and or else disturbing attraction for very young girls, often only 12 or 13, especially those who are prostitutes and hence totally vulnerable to his desires. Near the nullify of the novel he rattling abandons Sal as he lies sick in Mexico City. Ultimately Sal co mes to see Dean in a very brutal light, oine that hardly meets any kind of definition other than a decidedly anti-hero. . . when I got conk out I realized what a rat he was, but then I hadbto understand the unfeasible complexity of his life, how he had toleave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes.b(Kerouac, 1957) (emphasis added)Dean is thus essentially a coward, and a lack of courage is never part of the character of a tragic hero, whatever other faults he may possess. But Sal, in characteristically postmodern fashion, does not blame Dean for his cowardice and being a rat. The postmodern condition is one in which there are no absolute standards of ethics and thus everything is more or less forgiven.It is the complexity of his life that Sal feels makes Dean constantly abandon people. He is retributory another character who brings through an aimless world with little to concern him except an increasingly futile appear for a purely hedonistic lifestyle.The constant traveling in the book makes Dean an anti-hero rather than a hero. While many tragic heroes travel (Aeschylus, Odysseus) they nearly always have some kind of destination whether it be ethical or geographical, in mind. The characters of On the Road travel constantly, but with, to quotation mark a popular song of the period no particular place to go. They travel for the involvement of traveling. This aimless travel is a symbol for the lack of a higher ethical or religious structure within which to live. The characters of On the Road are sure of nothing, except that, as Sal says at the hold back of the book nobody knows whats going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old (Kerouac, 1957).Dean moves from the West to the East to the West to the South . . . and on with a sense of rather melancholy endlessness. At the end of the novel Dean returns to the West Coast on his own, and Sal ruminates upon the sad meaninglessness of life. While much has happened in the nove l in some senses, in the classic, Aristotelian sense very little has occurred that will for good change people. On the Road has no simple dramatic structure. There is no climax and denouement. Rather it is a formless kind of a quest story in which the search is an end in itself.This endless quest give On the Road a post-modern structure. The characters are on an existential search for themselves that seems doomed to failure. Dean Moriaty is the archetypal post-modern anti-hero within this quest. He draws people to him, and they travel thousands of miles in order to be a part of his wandering life. But when he loses interest in them he drops them with what appears to be a callous disregard for the consequences. But there is something heroic in his actions as he is at least being honest. He is being true to himself. If that self much of the time is cowardly, casually cruel, vaguely criminal and pedophilic in nature then he will still reveal it.To conclude, it seems clear that Dean Mo riaty, the protagonist of On the Road is far nearer to a post-modern anti-hero than to a traditional, classical hero. The world that he inhabits is one in which there is little meaning. It is an often dark, forbidding place in which the Cold War threatens nuclear missiles and in which a kind of despairing hedonism is the only course of action which seems relevant to most of the characters. They move around the country at an often dizzying rate, driving all night long for no apparent reason other than the fact they are moving. Romantic relationships are often little more than brief romantic liaisons and marriages are abandoned with the same disregard for consequences that the children that have come from them are thrown away. Dean Moriaty is a post-modern anti-hero, one that a myriad of similar figures have been more or less ground upon in the fifty years since On the Road was first publish. kit and caboodle CitedAmerican Heritage Dictionary, Dell, clean York 1992.Aristotle, The Ba sic Works of Aristotle, Modern Library, New York 2001.Holmes, Richard. On the Road Review. The Times, London 1957.Kaufmann, Walter. Tragedy and Philosophy. Princeton UP, New York 1992.Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. Penguin, New York 1957.Lawall, Greg. Apollonius Argonautica. Jason as Anti-Hero. Yale Classical Studies. 19, 119-169.